Stage and Screen: 'Black or White' falls short"Black or White" (2014) falls short in important ways - interesting concept, but a poorly directed film and Kevin Costner’s acting doesn’t help either. I’ll elaborate. The backstory: A teenage white girl has a baby fathered by crack smoking 23 year-old black man. The girl dies in childbirth without ever notifying her upper middle class parents that she is pregnant. The father abandons the mother and mixed-race inf...

'Selma' a compelling reminderMovies have great power. Movies enlighten, movies enrich, movies entertain, movies educate. Additionally, movies cause us to examine our lives and values and, perhaps most significantly, movies remind us of matters that transcend our individual lives. Better movies accomplish two or more of these qualities. The year 2014 was rich with films that served multiple purposes. “Birdman,” for example, reminded us that ou...

Stage and Screen: ‘Sniper’ lets audience into inner conflict of warEight year-old Chris Kyle shoots his first deer under the supervision of his father Wayne. His life-lessons about guns, and his own destiny, begin at this moment and later when his father tells him that there are three types of people - “sheep, wolves and sheepdogs.” In daddy Wayne’s vernacular a sheepdog is one of “those (people) who are blessed with the gift of aggression and an overpowering need to protect the ...

Stage and Screen: 'The Imitation Game' is the real thing“The Imitation Game” (2014) — so much to say — so little space in which to say it. Most films offer only one, perhaps two, layers of storyline. By my count there are at least five layers of storyline imbedded in this remarkable motion picture. The most obvious layer being the ground-breaking British project to crack the apparently impregnable WWII German Enigma Code. The Enigma Code allowed Germany to transmit com...

Stage and Screen: Amazing story; Jolie’s film less soAngelina Jolie’s “Unbroken” (2014) recounts the story of Louis “Louie” Zamperini. The son of Italian immigrant parents, Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) grew up in the trying times of the Great Depression. While bullied by xenophobic classmates, he was able to demonstrate a unique skill — distance running. Coaching by his brother helped him advance to Olympic status in time for the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany. While f...

Stage and Screen: 'Wild' is a walk into the wildernessReese Witherspoon is an underrated actor. Many think of her as a vapid, airhead character actor as a result of her 2001 classic portrayal of Elle Woods in “Legally Blond.” It’s hard to imagine anyone else playing this charming comedic role as convincingly as Witherspoon. In an odd way Elle Woods has become the signature role of an actor with a much broader range of performing skills than this part suggests. Three ...

Stage and Screen: 'Interstellar' and 'The Homesman' — A lesser of two evils Movie reviewing is a serious undertaking. While there is certainly room for variation in film commentary – many wonder what film a particular reviewer saw when they assigned a “rave review” to a movie which seems second class, at best. Several years ago a movie review exposé highlighted “hired-gun” reviewers who were apparently paid by some production companies to publish rave reviews that could be quoted in promo...

Stage and Screen: 'The Theory of Everything' about love, not physicsA theory of everything refers to a “single, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe” (Wikipedia). As explained in the film “The Theory of Everything” such an expansive and magnificent theory would encompass the foundational theories of physics — general relativity and quantum field theory. The juxtaposition of the words...

Stage and Screen: 'Birdman' is a film not for the birdsDo you need validation of your life’s work? Do you need to gain the respect you feel you never got even though you were hugely successful in the honest endeavors of your career? Are you prepared to sacrifice everything you have accomplished to grab that fabled elusive “brass ring?” The brass ring that will establish you once and for all as a true artist in a field which you have already conquered but don’t realize...

Leadership, endurance theatre on FridayIt’s a combination of the story of Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctica explorer, and an insurance salesman during an economic meltdown. That’s what Split Knuckle Theatre, a Connecticut-based theatre company, is bringing to Kodiak on Friday as part of the Kodiak Arts Council’s Performing Arts Series. The production has Walter Spivey, a recently promoted insurance salesman, trying to save the jobs of his employees and...